put the bag away. ‘I always love this bit. Forensics are going through the scene, we don’t know who the victim is, there’s a killer on the loose. Excitement. Adventure. And …’ She frowned. ‘Can’t remember the end of the quote, but you know what I mean.’
McAdams nodded. ‘The main plot is unfolding. What we need now is a flashback from the killer’s perspective then some sort of investigative montage to show how much research the writer’s done.’ He clicked his fingers again. ‘Constable MacGregor, get yourself and your new best friend DC Franklin back to the lair. I want a murder board ready to go by … I’m in the mood for pizza, so call it an hour and a half. And get a lookout request on the go for Glen Carmichael and his two mates while you’re at it. Most people stick to rubber duckies in their bathtub, a dead body requires a bit more explaining.’
Ah. ‘Sarge, I was kinda hoping to go home and—’
‘Oooh.’ Mother made a sooking noise. ‘And you were doing so well, Callum. I even gave you a jelly baby.’
‘Time to be a team player, Detective Constable.’
His shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, Boss.’
Yeah, Elaine was going to kill him.
The wet road hissed beneath the pool car’s tyres.
Franklin frowned out of the window. ‘I thought Division Headquarters was that way?’
‘Technically, yes.’ Callum took a right at the roundabout, heading back along the boundary between Castleview and The Wynd. ‘Just got a quick errand to run first.’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Is this what it’s going to be like, Constable? All moaning and “wee errands”?’
‘Five, ten minutes tops. I swear.’ After all, the traffic wasn’t too bad for a Tuesday. ‘Someone stole my wallet this morning. A guy might have it at a shop in Kingsmeath.’
A sigh. A shake of the head. ‘Thought you were supposed to be a police officer.’
‘I was trying to save a little girl’s life: that OK with you?’ Up and over the Blackwall Bridge, and back into Blackwall Hill again, with its modern sprawl of cul-de-sacs and middle-class housing estates.
‘By losing your wallet?’
Past the lights, the road opened up into dual carriageway, everyone sticking to the outside lane to avoid Oldcastle City Council’s award-winning collection of potholes. ‘I didn’t lose it, it was stolen.’
‘This isn’t helping us put a murder board together.’
‘We’ll be fine.’
‘They’re only going for pizza, we—’
‘I’ve done loads of murder boards: it’ll be fine. Trust me.’
She pursed her lips. ‘And why on earth would I do that?’
Fair point.
Montgomery Park drifted by on the right-hand side, a bunch of big white marquees with tartan stripes already sprouting on the grass around the boating lake.
‘OK. Full one hundred percent honesty time: the reason everyone hates me, is they think Big Johnny Simpson bribed me to sod-up a crime scene so he’d get off. But I didn’t. Not a penny. Ever.’
She frowned at him. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? That you’re incompetent instead of corrupt?’
‘I’m not incompetent!’
‘Could have fooled me.’
‘Fine. I was trying to share, but why don’t you just sit there in sulky silence. See if I care.’ He clicked on the radio. Let it drown out her pouting.
‘… headline the main stage on Saturday, of course, it’s Oldcastle’s very own Donny “Sick Dawg” McRoberts! Donny, my man, good to have you in.’
A fake London patois burst out of the speaker, not quite good enough to conceal the Kingsmeath burr underneath. ‘Yah, it’s Sick Dawg, right? Donny’s what me foster mum called us, and you ain’t my mum, bro.’
‘Ha, ha. Right. Yeah, I got you, man. Respect. “Sick Dawg” it is …’
The massive Blackburgh Roundabout loomed before them. Burgh Library sat on a hill in the middle, all lit up like a 1960s idea of a spaceship – glass and concrete, curving walls and wonky rooflines. The Kingsmeath side of the roundabout was ringed by seven massive tower blocks, eighteen-storey headstones soaring above a scrubby patch of woodland. More 1984 than Star Trek.
‘So, “Sick Dawg”, welcome to Deathbed Discs on Castlewave FM, where we find out what tracks you’d take with you to the grave. And you’re kicking us off with “Stan” from Eminem’s fourth album, The Marshall—’
‘Yah, I been thinking about it, right? And I’m-a not about that no more.’
Callum swung the pool car around the outside lane, then took the first turning into Kingsmeath.
It was as if someone had turned down the lights, leaving the buildings in gloom. Rows and rows of council houses. Tenements. Grey faces and grey buildings.
‘You’re not?’
‘Nah, man. I go to my grave I’m not gonna be surrounded by stuff from the oldtimers, you know what I’m sayin’? Nah: I’m-a play my own stuff, bro. You know, from the heart.’
‘OK …’
An old couple stood on the pavement, screaming at each other, a wee dog cowering on its lead as they yelled.
‘Well, why don’t we just play the song anyway. It’ll give us time to completely abandon all the music your publicist told us you wanted to talk about and reprogramme the whole show …’
Fake rain clattered out of the speakers, followed by Dido singing over a heavy bassline.
Franklin made a little growling noise then jabbed her hand out and turned the radio off. ‘Bloody rap music.’
After that she kept her mouth firmly shut all the way through the bleak housing estates, past a dilapidated playing park – the swings and roundabouts reduced to slumped blobs of fire-blackened plastic – past Douglas on the Mound with its scaffolding-shrouded spire and vandalised graveyard …
It wasn’t until Callum pulled into a potholed car park that she opened it again. ‘Is this it?’
The car park was bordered on three sides by what were probably billed as ‘single-storey retail units with excellent potential!’ but looked more like something off the news when a riot’s just passed through. Three of the eight were boarded up; all were covered in a tattoo of graffiti; all had the kind of metal grilles over the window that were meant to roll up out of the way, but probably spent all their time firmly locked in the down position. A newsagents, a chip shop,
